Interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) levels finally become stable with increasing age as revealed by using an ELISA...

The immune status is a parameter of the capacity of the immune system to fend off microorganisms. The use of leukocyte subtyping to define the immune status is clinically established. IFN-gamma is a key cytokine directing the immune response. In this study, we investigated whether IFN-gamma is a more sensitive parameter of the immune status. All persons tested showed stable quantities of white blood cell counts over the whole study. Analyses of the lymphocyte subpopulations of two time points resulted in a strong correlation with high statistical significance for the percentage of CD3, CD4, CD8, CD19, CD45 -subtypes and CD56/16 positive cells. IFN-gamma production by the individuals correlates between these time points also, but only if an ELISA strongly correlating to IFN-gamma bioactivity was used instead of other commercial IFN-gamma ELISAs. The IFN-gamma production by males was less variable than by females. Furthermore, intraindividual differences in IFN-gamma secretion were minimal after the age of 46. In conclusion, our data demonstrate that IFN-gamma is a more sensitive parameter for the actual status of the immune system, since its titer shows alterations faster than leukocyte subtyping. Furthermore, leukocyte subtypes do not correspond to the production capacity of the regulatory cytokine IFN-gamma in healthy individuals.